Treasure Hunts

How many people here like to participate in merchant's treasure hunts? It certainly seems to be the season for them. I used to do these a lot more often, but recently it seems to me that a lot of merchants that put them on just don't get it--these are supposed to be fun, and if they are too easy or too hard, they're not fun at all. Making them too hard runs the additional risk of irritating a potential or current customer. Especially given all the ongoing SL performance problems, if I spend an hour on a hunt without finding anything, it doesn't make me inclined to spend my money with that merchant. As far as I'm concerned, when it is too difficult to find *anything* (mind you, not *everything*, just *anything*) they were either trying to prove how much smarter they were than their customers or they were just trying to game the traffic system. Or am I the only one that feels that way?

And before someone brings up that no one needs to give away stuff, I know that. If you don't wanna give away free stuff, then just don't give away free stuff. Why run the risk of alienating customers?

Note: I am not complaining about any particular hunt; that was not my intention at all.

Hi there,
I love a good treasure hunt! The coolest one I´ve done was the one for the Random Calliope jewellery at the Crescent Moon museum. It's hard, very hard, but also kept me very entertained for a good while.
More recently I've been on a couple of Halloween ones, which were very easy, but fun.
I don't mind if they are hard, if the treasures are cool. But hey, I like a challenge
For me personally it's never about whether I might buy from the merchant or not. For me it's for the entertainment.

Making puzzles that are the correct level of difficulty is the very hardest bit of puzzle-making.

Unfortunately, a lot of people will say that a puzzle creator is a "genius" if they create a puzzle that is really hard to solve. The problem is, anyone can create a puzzle that's really hard or impossible to solve. Irc aor ecoeurc oraci apcr gas or oaeurc bg aoer?

Meanwhile, even RL professional puzzle designers, like Cliff Johnson, have trouble with generating puzzles that are just the perfect difficulty to be interesting.

I was quite irritated by the one I attempted last night. Not because they hid things in impossible places, but because they a) didn't make it clear what the 'boxes' looked like in their instructions, which meant I wasted quite a bit of time trying to figure out what exactly I was looking for, and b) they made the box colors similar to the the sim's building colors, so you could walk or cam right by them several times without seeing anything if you weren't at just the right angle.

ETD, Canimal, Celestial City and Last Call did a 4-sim valentine "treasure hunt". There were a 20-odd packages hidden across the 4 sims, each one containing a clue on where to find the next one.

There were three different hunts schedueled (each time with new locations and clues) to accomodate most time-zones and spread the lag out a bit, and after the last one they left it out for another day or two for people who couldn't make the official ones (there were "grand prizes" for being one of the first to collect all clues).

They were insanely laggy . Some people did get frustrated and dropped out, but most everyone who participated was laughing and enjoying it and had a great time and I don't think it really made anyone stop shopping there, it's just how things in SL go.

There were another few treasure hunts I participated in, but those didn't involve "cryptic clues" on where to look for something and I just got too frustrated looking and I personally didn't really enjoy those.

I love the Treasure Quest ones (held every month) because you have to figure out the clues to find your prize (although a few of the clues are really really simple). I sometimes enjoy the ones where you are just looking around for items with prizes (bananas, jugs, coconuts, critters, etc), but to me they don't provide quite as much fun and challenge as the ones that give you clues.

I use to love them especially when done with friends but found they were making my inventory get way out of control. Many had items that are well done but I just had no need for. Found I was spending too much time checking each item to see that it was either junk (less likely) or that I had no need for it (more likely). I just don't have the patience for them anymore. The thrill has worn off.

A couple of my tenants engage in the treasure hunt business, there's a big one for the last week or so every month and people are arriving at my island in droves, I think they're great.

well I'll still be looking for that one single missing piece of Mata Hari jewellery for like the rest of my useful life


See what you mean though, just digging through the stuff finding out whether it's worth hanging on to can take the fun out of it

We are running a Halloween treasure hunt this month.. It's there for fun, and not affiliated with anyone apart from to get perople to explore our land....

We have hidden 31 pumpkins all over our land, and each contains a prize... If you wear the HUD from the start and find all 31, ou get a cash prize too

We've done it for fun - all the pumpkins are the same size. If you would like to have a go, you have until the 31st

The SL URL is http://slurl.com/secondlife/Ranthambore/174/13/37/

You can get your HUD from the nonotice by the landing point.

Gomez

lol I think Gomez and I must be long lost twins! I elected to put on the Great Goun Pumpkin Hunt on my parcels this year and yep, there are gonna be 31 prize pumpkins! ahaha, but, they are orange and hard to miss hehehe, even if some are cunningly placed.
I've never done one before so I have no idea how it will work, but I sure had fun finding places to hide things so I'm hoping people will have as much fun hunting for them

Hmmm, I just did the Deviant Kitties one and eventually found everything...some pretty good stuff too. The pumpkins aren't placed in tricky places for the most part, but they are itty-bitty, so you don't see them until you're practically on top of them.

I think someone was cheating though...he kept saying "Find (whatever number/name pumpkin)" in chat, with some added characters, like maybe he was using a script or gadget to locate them.

I recently made a system called The Treasure Hunter, the owner hides the treasures around their land and players grab a shovel a wander around trying to dig them up, each treasure can be worth anywhere from 1-50 lindens, the owner can decide the value. It's fully menu driven and fun to play.

And in a similar fashion to the goldrush system, you can view where the treasure hunter systems are located, how many treasures they have on their land, how much has been given away, etc, as well as a link to them on our website.

I have a demo one setup on my land at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cybertopia%20Commons/163/221/22

I also have the system for sale on slexchange and from inside my shop.

I know it's not exactly what you guys are talking about, but it's an alternative.

we did a fun treasure hunt where i work and live at
20+ boxes around the sim so you can see the great builds and beautiful areas

artwork, jewelry,skins halloween type stuff

only up till tomorow so come check it out im there partying most of tonight

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Isle%20of%20Damnation/92/167/33

there's always a treasure hunt on at Devilfish Mall on Dahlia Island...

It's mainly for the newbies, small cash prizes (occasionally 100L/500L) & items there's 10 boxes to find dotted all over the mall


http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dahlia%20Island/198/180/22/

Hehe

31 seems like a good number considering Halloween is the 31st, and they are placed in an area covering nearly a sim.

It's the first one we've done and have been really pleased with the way it's gone - it's been really popular, and as the land owner it's been a great way to get visitors to see everything we have here - it's amazing the amount of people that have been coming for mnths who have said "I didn't realise how big the place was" or "I've never seen X before". I also created a scripted HUD to allow visitors to keep track of the pumpkins found and if they get them all, win a cash bonus.

We are already planning a christmas one for December

Gomez

I adore these hunts - gets me to branch out and find areas that I normally would not have gone. Plus I get free stuff that might be nice.

Ooooo...I'll be starting that one next!!

So far we've completed the Numbakalla Pot Healer Quest (worked on that one on and off for 4 months!), currently working on The Broken Harp Quest (spent 20 hours there before I found the first clue...grrrr)...and put that one on hold while doing the Octoberville Quest.

Anyone know where the lost keys or The Fool is? Anyone....

The Mata Hari one was great, although I admit I never found all the pieces--had to beg for help. Another one I enjoyed recently was the Isle of Tranquility. Several little puzzles to solve, none were particularly difficult but enough to keep me interested

There seems to be mainly 2 kinds of hunts--the kind that's just camming all over the place looking for boxes crammed everywhere, and the actual puzzle ones that require you to decipher clues. I enjoy the latter much much more. I tend to get frustrated with the former, since it does seem like people don't put as much thought in them; there's usually not a good mix of difficulty in finding the prizes. They're all too easy & I get bored, or they're impossible to find & I feel like the sim owner is just trying to boost traffic stats without actually having to give anything away.

And now that I've said I can only think of two main types, I've thought of a third variant--the Ode Butterfly hunts, which require some dexterity to catch the moving butterflies. I love or hate that one depending on how my wrist feels that day.

Question on the objects in these hunts: What is it about an objects's definition that keeps you from seeing it via camera pan if you are too far away, but you can still see other objects (like the actual buildings and trees and such)? Many of these hunts have objects that I cannot see until I am very close to the physical location of them.

.... update.... just did the Pulse one mwuahahahahaha it's a huge laugh, highly recommended, no idea what the final prize actually is, because didn't have time to open it all.

good treasure hunts:

--finding stuff makes you feel as if you've accomplished something. clever hiding, or clues. not impossible hiding.
--you get great goodies.


bad treasure hunts:

--finding stuff makes you feel as if you're just forced to plod through every vendor's store in a mall.
--you get cheap crap freebies as prizes. or good freebies that you already have from everywhere else, ya know? or five landmarks to stores and two notecard ads, and one tossed-together 'exclusive' earring or ugly shoe. (*)
--hunts with limited, non-respawning prizes. some guy gets there early, has a fast machine, nabs everything before lag sets in, and you get doodle-squat. five minutes after the listed event time, the 'big prize' has been won.



* i mean, yeah, i KNOW treasure hunts are product promotions, but there's such a thing as overdoing it! its like making a tv commercial, do you make it fun to watch, or a real chore?

I did this one too. It's great fun. The downside is I got so many freebies I've virtually doubled my inventory, which I like to keep at around 500 items (excluding silly library items, of course).
I love the torch you're given at the beginning!

I loved that one ^^

I use alot of the stuff I got from it too lol.. especially the end prize, loved it ^^

Where is the Pulse one? I found a sim named Pulse, but didn't see anything resembling a treasure hunt.